Manifestations of Shame at the Intersections of Gender, Sexuality, Race and Class: A Feminist Literary Analysis of Dominique Botha’s Valsrivier

Abstract

SummaryThis article offers a feminist literary analysis of the representation of shame in Dominique Botha’s Valsrivier and it demonstrates how shame manifests itself in the spaces where gender, sexuality, race and class intersect. The study of shame offers myriad analytical possibilities and these have largely been left unexplored in scholarly engagements with Botha’s critically acclaimed text. By focusing on the embodied experiences of shame of the character of Dominique and those of a number of other, often peripheral, characters, I contend that the politics of shame are as crucial to understanding these women’s lived realities as those of race and class. Because of its very nature, a number of challenges crop up when one attempts to broach the topic of shame, not least of which is the fact that it makes people extremely uncomfortable. I argue that it is crucial that feminist critics move beyond the desire to turn away so that we can turn the scholarly gaze on shame in order to expose it to analysis. This article has entered into this uncomfortable and challenging conversation by considering how selected female literary characters experience shame at the intersections of gender, race, sexuality and class.